'A Salutation' by Adrian Caesar | States of Poetry ACT - Series One

Some months after the funeral,checking emails from the other hemisphere,there's one from Pauline; subject: Hell.It's not promising. My mind traversesthe last five years, their litany of loss –a son, two friends and mentors,then you, lovely sister, and like some grimcomedic postscript even Frankiethe cat succumbed. Suffice to sayI am well acquainted with grief.So on a bright morning of frost sparkleand sunshine I don't want more bad news.Through the window I watch parrots cavorthunger's casual gymnasts in the treessquawking over breakfast to celebratethe playful day. Coraggio my own wordto you dying limps back to mebattered and bruised; I open the messagefrom your friend. It speaks of plantingwild primroses on your graveand how the site at Barton Glebeis bright with daisies and dandelionspeaceful as ever. There is talkof daily things and at the last:Tell Claire K's rose is blooming.As I felt the familiar watering begin,I realised the typo in the subject bar:Hello it should have said. And saw how thatsingle 'o' could hold at once the meaningof love perfected or the blank of absencethe nothing of death we try to fill with heaven.And in my mind against the parrot's raucous dinas if to reassure I should dwell on more than zeroI swear I heard your voice make greeting.

Adrian Caesar was born and educated in England, but has lived and worked in Australia for more than thirty years. He is the author of three books of literary and cultural criticism and an experimental 'non-fiction novel', The White, which won the Victorian Premier's Award for Non-Fiction in 2000 and the ACT Book of the Year in 2000. His novel, The Blessing, was published by Arcadia in 2015. He has also published five books of poetry, the latest of which is, Dark Cupboards New Rooms (Shoestring Press, 2014). High Wire (2005) was shortlisted for the Judith Wright Prize in 2007. His work has recently featured in The Best Australian Poems 2014 and Dazzled – an anthology of poems long-listed for the inaugural University of Canberra's Vice Chancellor's International Poetry Prize.

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